Ricardo Adão

Just me.

7 minute read

It seems that I got another Badge.

VCP VCF Administrator 2024 Badge

The VCP VCF Administrator 2024 (2V0-11.24) was not my first remote proctored exam, I have done in the past the VCAPs NVs.

Booking and Scheduling process

Nothing new here, pretty easy to follow and was fairly easy to get a slot in the day I wanted.

The entire scheduling process became smooth being it remote or in person.

Check-in Process

Fairly straight forward and it is a three (3) stage process:

  • Stage 1
    • Open the exam link that will give you a code that will be your process/exam ID for the rest of the process
    • You start the OnVue application
    • Some system checks are done (some of these are also done if you do the pre checks before you start the check-in), these are tests to make sure your laptop has enough resources to handle the exam, audio and camera are working since you will be recorded/monitored during the exam
      • Any applications that need to be shutdown?
      • Network speed/bandwidth is adequate?
      • Microphone working?
      • Audio working?
      • Camera works?
  • Stage 2
    • This one can be done with a mobile, the application gives you multiple options to get this part of the process done through the mobile
    • Take photos of the ID document
    • Take photos of the space where you are taking the exam
  • Stage 2
    • After all the photos are taken you are added to a queue to wait for a human to do some last final checks
      • Not being the first remote proctored exam I took some precautions to help speed up the process based in the previous experiences:
        • stored away all the devices - mobiles, tables, alexa/google, etc - that could have been deemed as potential challenges to the entire check-in process, even stored away a fancy/design clock to make sure
        • turned, remove any pictures, from ppl, in the past some of these photos were identified as additional persons, hence to speed up the check-in validations I turned them away or stored them in the cupboards
        • In summary, I cleaned up the entire exam area to be 100% sure
    • Not sure if the process was streamlined or the fact that I prepared the entire exam area helped, but this time there was no need for a human interaction check to validate some checks and suggest some changes in the exam space, it took away some time from the check-in process

Exam Experience

The exam is delivered through the OnVue application and once the exam content is download it is a pretty smooth process. You will have 70 questions and 135 minutes to go through the exam.

I followed my normal exam workflow:

  • Go through all the questions once and mark the questions for review
  • The first pass give me an idea of what sort of subjects are covered and also could help dissipate some doubts from previous questions
  • This first pass also takes away some pressure when you get close to the time limit since worst case you have all the questions answered, instead of leaving some questions without answer, which for sure will count 0
  • This strategy also helps with time management, since sometimes you need some time to answer some of the questions, compared to other that you almost answer immediately

There are different opinions and sentiments around the remote proctored versus in person, and I think that it will all depend on the person and the way that different people handle stress and feel about new environments.

In my personal opinion, while I never had issues with the in person exams, since all my previous experiences were great, I feel that the familiar environment and being your safe space allows you to perform better and reduce some potential pressure from external factors, since you can control the room temperature, lighting, noise level, etc.

In addition did not felt that the remote proctored exam lost any of the advantages of the in person regarding the support when you needed help, in reality the few times I needed help with anything during the exams, the remote proctored exam got a quicker turn around compared to in person.

The VCP VCF Administrator Exam is a new exam/certification that focus on the skills needed to deploy, manage and support an environment built on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).

The questions cover a lot of subjects from the basic questions related to the basic understanding of VCF to more detailed questions covering some of the components and products that are associated with the VCF platform, for example HCX, DSM and NSX.

As we would expect a VCP Exam needs to cover the basics but also some advanced questions to align with the expected audience of the exam, in this case being designed to address the skills of a VCF Administrator it has a decent balance between really techy/hands-on questions, to questions a bit more aligned with the design of the solution.

Being a multiple-choice/multiple-selection/matching/sequencing exam, there were some questions that I had some conflicting feelings about what was the right order or right answer, mainly when some of the sequences could have different orders based in the environment or based in the way that each individual positions the steps themselves.

There was also 1 or 2 questions where I was not sure if the solutions provided were on purpose typos or just real typos, but we are talking about 1 or 2 questions out of 70 on the exam, and out of probably a massive pool of questions on the database for this exam.

Exam Preparation

A good place to start when you start preparing for any exam will be the Exam Guide, in this case VMware Certified Professional - VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator 2024 - Exam Guide.

The Exam Guide will normally will give details about the exam:

  • Number of questions - 70 items for this one
  • Passing score - Normally 300 for VMware Exams
  • Duration - 135 minutes (2h15m), sometimes there is an extension for non-native English speakers, but that does not apply for this one

The exam guide recommends to attend VMware Cloud Foundation: Deploy, Manage, Configure training since it covers a lot of the content and subjects that are covered by the exam, however the requirement to attend training courses for the exams was dropped some time ago, which helps everyone that work day in day out with the solutions/products and could have some challenges attending training courses.

However there is plenty of public resources available that cover the exam topics, however we need to remember that being VCF a solution that includes a lot of other products, for example NSX, VSAN, HCX and others, there is a need to be familiar with all of the different components.

Some public resources/documentation that could be helpful to have a look to refresh some of the knowledge or if you want to dig a bit more into the detail:

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